Friday, November 25, 2005

I rather like this Marginal Revolution take on why markets are good to have. The author talks about how he has specific needs for peanut butter but really doesn't care about toothpaste while his wife feels the opposite way. As he points out, this argues against the newly fashionable idea that more choice is bad or somehow debilitating. Really, we only make choices about the things we care about, but for those we want lots of options. I for one want to see every beer on earth at the grocery. What galls me are the people who want to hold back the profusion of goods because they know better and want to protect me from the hazards of choice. These are the same paternalistic people who wag their fingers at drinkers and smokers. At the same time the God Warrior's people are rising on the right, the nanny staters are rising on the left. Thank goodness I live in happily libertarian PDX.